Rocket Mass Re-Build

We've had a freakishly mild winter this year. Works for me. Although surviving through multiple week stretches of -40 weather is kind of a badge of honour many Canadians are proud of, I hate that shit. It's almost over anyway, and the season for building things and growing stuff is so close now. Today was a beautiful, sunny +5 C day with no wind. Mrs. Mud and I went wandering around the acreage looking for scavenging materials that we've probably seen a dozen times but still hadn't figured out what to do with. As new projects develop there is often something laying around that seemed to have no good purpose until just right now. Also, today I cleaned one of the guns, went outside and put 25 rounds through it. Wandering around the property with the old lady in beautiful weather and then some shooting adds up to a pretty wonderful day.
I have nothing to complain about. Well, except that my government (and probably yours too) is filled with a bunch of peckerheads bent on turning the country into a corporate free-for-all while 'real persons' struggle to survive and pay the politicians lucrative salaries and pensions.

My rocket mass heater is acting weird. I'm thinking of tearing it apart for a complete rebuild. That certainly doesn't cause me to complain. On the contrary. How many people with 'traditional' heating systems in their 'traditional' homes can just rebuild it themselves? That's why I love owner built homes using mostly natural materials. I'm in control. I don't need some overpriced furnace guy or electrician to come into my home, do some weird voodoo I don't understand and leave me with a huge bill. (I don't mean to rag on plumbers or electricians in particular, I'd understand if they felt the same way about some overpriced GIS dude handing them a bill for something they didn't understand or need and could have likely done a different way themselves for free.)

When I first fired up the mass heater it worked great. And has since, but not consistently. Sometimes it will reverse. All of a sudden, the airflow will change and blow smoke into the house. Then it reverses again, sucks smoke back into the feed tube and makes that satisfying rocket sound, just like it should. I have some ideas why this is happening. One is that the vertical stack at the end of the run within the mass is just not getting warm enough. There isn't enough heat left by the time it reaches the stack to combat the push from the column of cold air fighting against it. That's one possibility anyway, I'm not sure if it explains the 'pulsing' motion of air flow though. Another possible issue may be that my bell chamber between the barrel and the beginning of the run the mass might have too much volume. Another problem may be that since winter got here before the thing was completely finished there may be minor air leakage around the bottom of the barrel. All these problems can be easily dealt with in a rebuild. I will go with a shorter run through thermal mass. Also reconfigure the layout so that the final vertical piece of pipe that leaves the house would be positioned right against (or darn close) to the heat exchange barrel. Both these things would increase the temperature of the gasses in the vertical stack, thereby increasing the 'suck' at the feed tube.

As much as I wish no changes would be required I'm glad to learn this now instead of after moving in this fall only to be smoked out in the winter. I don't want to be pondering improvements to the system standing outside in January watching smoke billow out the windows.

Winter will be kept outside this year

Our earthbag house is closed in just in time for winter. Roof is finished, windows are all in and the rocket mass heater is mostly constructed as well.  This winter we'll be able to get some interior work done.

Insulated heat riser

The cats enjoying the warmth of the first burn

I really do love rocket stoves. I burned this one for about three hours and ended up with about a cup full of ashes. For the burn I used the slats from about one and a half pallets. These things are just amazing. The exhaust coming out the exit was mostly steam and only warm, not hot. There was a faint smell of wood in the exhaust but not like smoke from any other fire. And the large amount of mass holds this heat for a very long time, releasing it slowly.

Now we are onto to some of many, many other projects. Mrs. Mud has started on building a bat house to be put up near the end of winter. This is going be be a huge help around the homestead. Summer here brings a lot of mosquitoes. I've described my problems with mosquitoes in a previous post.

We've also recently acquired a 7 week old golden retriever pup. So that meant putting a doggy door in to the porch for him, putting up a fence for a dog run and building a dog house. The dog house was actually pretty easy. We re-purposed one of the door forms from the earthbag structure. All the wood in this was originally salvaged from the dump. I'm not sure what purposes it served before I got hold of it, but this will the second thing it has done for me. It may even be part of another project before it ends up heating my butt in the rocket mass heater.

We just make shit up as we go

For everyone that has read and commented on my blog thank you. I appreciate that you have taken the time to do so. I've just been to damn busy or exhausted to respond. It's been a while since I blogged or even had time to read any of those that I enjoy. For a couple months I was working two full time jobs and trying to get work done on the domestead as well. I'm down to one job now and I get to work from home.  Can't beat that with a stick.

One of the cats has been very busy too. While nursing some kittens, she went and had six more. My plan was to wait until a couple of them were about size 11, then hollow them out to make some slippers. But overnight 5 of them disappeared. Could be coyotes, owls or foxes. There's more life than you might expect on the bald-assed prairie.

exit form for rocket mass heater

Plans have changed on the house once again. A few months ago we realized we would never have time to finish doming in the three we needed most (or even work at all on the other two) so we decided to roof them go for more of a castle shape. I'm glad I built a complete dome from dirt on the property a couple years ago or I would have to consider changing my internet name.

Standing bags between beams

roof will be embedded in bags

After the OSB plywood, I laid down a sticky roofing membrane then screwed tin on top of that. Then the final row of bags (laid flat) will lock everything together. And finally a few more bags to give that knobby-castle-thing look.

The rocket mass heater has finally been worked on as well. The temporary mock-up I built gave awesome results. So now the burn tunnel is mortared in place and ready to put the riser back on and get to the next steps. I was lucky to find a riser with a 7 inch inside diameter and 1/2 inch wall thickness.

And finally, to those dipshit Canadian delegates that walked out on some guys speech at the UN: You should be publicly ridiculed and humiliated, then fired for deriliction of duties and stripped of your citizenship. Assholes.